rstmm 



H AND Duty 




TION^^ 



REV. LM.ATWOOD, D.D, 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 



Shelf . 



UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



^anuals of JTaitl) anG ^Dutp. 

^ EDITED BY REV. J. S. CANTWELL, D.D. 



A SERIES of short books in exposition of prominent teachings 
of the Universalist Church, and the moral and rehgious 
obhgations of beUevers. They are prepared by writers selected for 
their ability to present in brief compass an instructive and helpful 
Manual on the subject undertaken. The volumes will be afifirmative 
and constructive in statement, avoiding controversy, while specifically 
unfolding doctrines. 

The Manuals of Faith and Duty are issued at intervals of 
three or four months; uniform in size, style, and price. 

No. I. 
THE FATHERHOOD OF GOD. 

By Rev. J. Coleman Adams, D.D., Chicago. 
No. II. _ 

JESTIS THE CHRIST. 

By Rev. S. Crane, D.D., Norwalk, O. 

No. III. 
REVELATION. 

By Rev. I. M. Atwood, D D,, President of the Theological 
School, Canton, N. Y. 

No. IV. 
CHRIST IN THE LIFE. 

By Rev. Warren S. Woodbridge, Adams, Mass. 

Among the subjects and writers already selected are : " Retribu- 
tion," by Rev. J. M. Pullman, D.D., and "The Birth from Above," 
by Rev. Charles F. Lee. Other volumes and writers will be an- 
nounced hereafter. 



published by the 

UNIVERSALIST PUBLISHING HOUSE, 

BOSTON, MASS. 
Western Branch : 69 Dearborn Street, Chicago. 



i/" 



^ 



4. 



iWanuals of jFaitJ} ant» ©utg. 

\ ^ No. III. 



REVELATION. 



ISAAC M^ATWOOD, D.D., 

PRESIDENT OP THE THEOLOGICAL SCHOOL, CANTON, N. Y. 



"God, having of old time spoken unto the fathers 
in the prophets by divers portions and in divers man- 
ners, hath at the end of these days spoken unto us 
IN His Son." 

Hebrews i. 1, 2. 



BOSTON : 

UNIVERSALIST PUBLISHING H 
1889. 







Copyright, 1889, 
By the Universalist Publishing House. 



gantbersita Press: 
John Wilson and Son, Cambridge. 



CONTENTS. 



Section Page 

Introduction 5 

I. The Bible 11 

II. Not one Book but Many . ... . . 12 

III. Versions . . . . 13 

IV. Theories of the Book 15 

V. Is a Special Eevelation Necessary? Is it 

Probable? 21 

VI. Difficulties 28 

VII. Miracle . 36 

VIII. Inspiration and Revelation 52 

IX. Ends which Revelation Subserves ... 55 

X. Theosophy and Revelation 71 

XI. Interpretation of Scripture 82 

XII. Authority of Scripture ....... 86 

XIII. Conclusion 89 



pci'tg, tl^at {)e inSo MizhtQ tfje Scripture 
t0 ^abe proceetietii from ^im irrjo is t\)z 
autfjor of nature, mag inell expect to fintJ 
tjje game gort of tiifSculti'eg m it as are 
fount! in i\)z constitution of nature; antr, 
in a \ikz iBag of reflection, it mag hz atitjcti, 
tjat Je injo tjenies t^e .Scripture to Ja&e 
6een from ®oti upon account of tjcse tiif= 
ficulties, mag, for t]^e berg same reason, tieng 
t{)e inorlti to 5^^^ ^^^ii ^'^'^"t W^* 

Bishop Butler. 



EEVELATION. 



INTRODUCTION. 

THE true and large view of the subject 
treated in these pages takes in the fact 
that Revelation appears in nature, history, provi- 
dence, and human life. The exact account of 
Revelation is the disclosure of God to man. It 
is important to a correct understanding of the 
department of this wide inquiry to which this 
Manual is principally devoted, that the scope of 
the subject be adequately grasped. The value of 
the particular disclosures with which our Bible 
makes us acquainted depends on the reality of 
the revelations made through other channels. 
If it is not the fact that God reveals himself 
in the outer world, in experience, and in the 
powers and laws of the human mind, the pre- 
sumption is against any alleged revelation of 
himself. On the other hand, if the mind opens 
to the conception that the universe is the 



6 REVELATION. 

expression of Divine ideas, that day unto day 
utteretli speech, without voice, and that, in the 
phrase of Bushnell, even every man's life is a 
plan of God, it will be borne easily by the logic 
of its general position to the particular conclu- 
sion implied in a special revelation. For it must 
ever be kept in mind that the study of nature 
and history only then predisposes to what is tech- 
nically termed " unbelief," when it is pursued 
without recognition of the great truth, that the 
visible objects and products are manifestations 
of Invisible Power. It seems to be true that thus 
far in its history the modern doctrine of evolu- 
tion tends to materialism ; but this can scarcely 
continue to be its predominant effect. As it 
works itself clear of the swaddling-bands im- 
posed on it by its origin and first use in science, 
and comes to consciousness in philosophy, it will 
assert with more and more distinctness the prin- 
ciple that lies at its heart, namely, the ever com- 
pleter expression in higher visible forms of an 
immanent and eternal energy. A similar course 
may safely be predicted for other studies which 
at this moment appear to be leading men's minds 
to dreary negations and ultimate nothingness. 
Bacon's profound observation of the effect of the 



KEVELATION. 7 

study of Nature will be verified in the whole his- 
tory of thought ; and spiritualism, not material- 
ism, be the philosophy of the future. 

1. The underlying assumption in Revelation, 
then, is the existence of God. It seems trivial 
to say, if there be no God there can be no Reve- 
lation and no religion. But the significance of 
Revelation will depend on what is contained in 
the term " God." If we mean by it " the power 
with which we are everywhere in contact," or 
" the power not ourselves that makes for right- 
eousness," or " the stream of tendency," and con- 
strue this power as something which we cannot 
more closely define because it cannot be more 
distinctly known, Revelation will be foreclosed. 
What cannot be known cannot be revealed. No 
matter by what metaphysics the conclusion is 
reached that God cannot be really known, — 
whether by that of the positivist Comte, or of the 
agnostic Spencer, or of the absolutist Fichte, or of 
the pantheist Spinoza, or of the materialist Biich- 
ner, or of the idealist Hartmann, or of the theist 
Hamilton, ^ — the truth to be recognized is, that 
what cannot be known is practically non-existent. 

2. Nor is the situation improved by saying 
that God is real, but impersonal. It is but com- 



8 REVELATION. 

mon-sense to declare that an impersonal God is 
no God at all. The truth of this affirmation of 
the unsophisticated reason is copiously illustrated 
in the writings of all speculators who attempt to 
go on the hypothesis of an impersonal Deity. 
Either the constraint of logical consistency car- 
ries them swiftly along into pantheism, atheism, 
or materialism ; or they escape these conclusions 
by palpable self-contradiction. One of the most 
insidious delusions discoverable in religious 
thought is the notion that the personal recedes 
as the spiritual emerges. Just the contrary is 
the fact. A person is not a body, but a spirit. 
It is in spirit that personality inheres. You do 
not find the person until you find the spirit. To 
speak of " the great Spirit of the universe " 
under the notion that the words absolve you 
from the obligation to think of God as a per- 
son, is to miss your way in the broadest light. 
If there is any such Spirit, personality is insep- 
arable from it. The moment we lose our hold 
on God as a Spiritual Person, whose type we 
have in the spiritual personality of man, re- 
ligion begins to slip from us, revelation becomes 
impossible, and the belief in human immortality 
fades into fantasy. 



REVELATION. 9 

3. The conception of God under which the 
topic of Revelation is treated in this Manual is 
of " a Divine Mind and Will ruling the Universe, 
and holding moral relations with mankind." As 
such, He is conceived of as disclosing himself to 
man, a spiritual person of the same type, in the 
course and constitution of Nature, in the consti- 
tution of man, in human history, in the laws and 
life of the spirit, in the various religions of man- 
kind, and in particular, and as confirmatory of 
all the others, in the Scriptures of the Old and 
New Testaments. This book, however, except 
as to this Introduction, is confined to an account 
of what is known as the Christian Revelation. 

4. Reflection on the problem will soon make 
it apparent that Revelation, whether through the 
outer world, man, or Christ, can only be such to 
a being whose inner and permanent nature is 
the same in kind as that of the Being revealed. 
The facts might be just what they are, but they 
would have no meaning to a being incapable of 
interpreting them. Knowledge does not pass be- 
tween beings of different types of intelligence. 
If God is of one nature and man of another, it 
is impossible that the former should reveal him- 
self to the latter. As well expect man to reveal 



10 REVELATION. 

himself to the lion or the ostrich. There is no 
path open between them. But on the hypothesis 
of a common spiritual nature in man and in 
God, we have the condition of a revelation. The 
great doctrine of the Old Testament, that man 
is made in the image of God, which unfolds in 
the New into the completer and more engaging 
form, man the child of God, is, therefore, our 
warrant for considering any of the manifesta- 
tions of the Divine power and wisdom, whether 
in the universe or in the words of our Bible, as 
Revelation. For they are a revelation only in so 
far as they are disclosures of Crod to man. And 
the possibility of such disclosure hinges on the 
fact that man is a spiritual person, as God is. 

To gather up these points in a single sentence, 
Revelation is to be looked at largely as the 
whole process of Divine manifestation through 
all channels ; the Being revealed is to be appre- 
hended as a true and actual Person ; the special 
disclosure of God in Christ is our immediate 
theme ; and the possibility of revelation in any 
form, and, as a consequence, of meaning and 
value to our present study, depends on the fact 
of an essential likeness of nature in man and in 
God. 



REVELATION. 11 

I. — The Bible. 

The view which we have taken of the subject 
in general requires us to answer, why we pitch 
on a certain book as containing, rather than 
other books, a Revelation ? There are innumer- 
able books : the world is filled with them. Some 
of them are of great antiquity, some are of rare 
worth, some contain much of the garnered wis- 
dom of the race. Why select the Bible as the 
one in which God has particularly disclosed 
himself? 

1. The first part of the answer is in the fact 
that the selection has been made already, and 
made by a process that we are compelled to re- 
spect. No class or set of people gave the Bible 
its pre-eminence among books. By a natural 
process, analogous to that by which Homer has 
his place in classical literature, the Bible has 
taken its position as the chief religious book of 
mankind. 

2. Again, the" presumption in favor of the 
Bible, created by its place in religious literature, 
is supported by its important relation to the chief 
institutions of society, — the family, government, 
the church. It is not too much to say that the 



12 EEVELATIOK 

Bible is historically intertwined with the social 
fabrics that have been taking shape for thousands 
of years ; and it is as indispensable to them as 
the figure to a lace. 

3. Once more, the contents of the Bible, its 
themes, its characters, its power to vitalize the 
human soul, its association with the deepest life 
of two hundred generations, separate it from all 
other books, and make its study a duty where 
it is not embraced as a privilege. It would be 
easy to fill our pages with testimony of which 
these quaint words from Robert Boyle are a 
sample : " The Bible is indeed amongst books 
what the diamond is amongst stones, — the pre- 
ciousest and the sparklingest ; the most apt to 
scatter light, and yet the solidest and most proper 
to make impressions." 

IT. — Not one Book, but Many. 

What is the Bible ? It is not one book, but 
many books. The periods of authorship range, 
in the Old Testament, from about 1400 B. c. to 
400 B. c. ; and in the New from the year 60 a. d. 
to about 100 A. D. No additions have been made 
to the Old Testament since the formation of the 
canon, which could not have been later than 



EEVELATION. 13 

300 B. c, and may have been much earlier. The 
books of the New Testament all belong to the 
first century. The questions, whether the canon 
of either Testament was formed by authority ; 
whether the Divine Spirit presided over the se- 
lection of materials for the historical books, and 
the composition of the statutory, prophetical, and 
poetical books ; whether the authorship has been 
correctly ascribed in every instance ; whether 
some books were not excluded that should have 
been in the canon, and some retained that should 
have been excluded, — it is impossible to here 
enter into. Nor are they of so much importance 
as at first thought they might seem. For the 
character of the Bible, or, as Jerome called it, 
" Holy Library," its influence in the world, its 
place in literature, are what they are, however 
it was formed ; and its history and great pre- 
eminence, proved by a posteriori results, seem 
to vindicate in a truly remarkable degree the 
method, whatever it was, adopted in making 
up the collection. 

III. — Versions. 

When we speak of " our English Bible," the 
words imply that the Bible exists in other 



14 REVELATION. 

tongues, and suggest the inquiry, In what lan- 
guage or languages were the various books origi- 
nally written ? The books of the Old Testament, 
produced during a period of about a thousand 
years, were all written originally in Hebrew. Ver- 
sions of the Hebrew Scriptures were made into 
Aramaic (Targums), Greek (Septuagint), Latin 
(Yulgate), Syriac, Ethiopic, Arabic, Egyptian, 
Armenian, Gothic, Slavonic, and some other lan- 
guages, as well as into English. The Aramaic 
and Greek were made before the Christian era. 
The others were made at the same time or in 
close connection with versions of the New Testa- 
ment. The books of the New Testament, with 
possibly the exception of an original Hebrew 
copy of the Gospel by Matthew, were all written 
originally in Hellenistic, or "New Testament," 
Greek. 

The subject of the original manuscripts of the 
books of both Testaments, of the amount of care 
used in their transcription, translation, and pre- 
servation, of the " various readings " and the 
reasons for them, of the most authentic versions 
and texts, has given rise to a separate literature 
of vast proportions, which, in the nature of the 
case, can be studied and familiarly known only 



EEVELATION. 15 

by Biblical scholars. It is sufficient to say here, 
that the results of the labor and the learning 
expended on this branch of knowledge permit 
us to rest in the general trustworthiness of the 
version supplied to us in " our English Bible." 
We might even go further and describe it as, 
for the most part, remarkably accurate, while its 
literary form alone constitutes it a classic.^ 

lY. — Theories of the Book. 

1. Holding that the Bible, in a manner pe- 
culiar to itself, gives evidence of a Revelation, 
precisely what view shall we take of the content 
and character of the Revelation ? It is in place 
to note here the principal theories that have 

1 This remark is made with the Authorized Version in 
mind ; but it is applicable to the Revised Version, which, while 
approximating more nearly literal accuracy, does not depart 
from the version of King James in a sufficient degree to mar 
its justly admired Saxon strength and beauty. It is quite 
true that a first requirement in a version is exactness ; but 
grammatical precision is not always adequate. The Bible is 
literature as well as revelation. It embraces every variety of 
rhetorical structure. It is the great and almost unapproacha- 
ble merit of the Authorized Version that it renders into cor- 
responding Enghsh, and preserves in this dress, the diversified 
literature of the Bible. Many other translations exceed it in 
critical and grammatical exactness : all are inferior to it in 
literary power. 



16 EEVELATION. 

been held on the subject. Authentic informa- 
tion does not guide us far back of the advent of 
Christianity. At that date we may say, gener- 
ally, there were two schools of Biblical interpre- 
ters among the Jews, — the literalists and the 
allegorists. We have examples of both in the 
use made of the Old Testament by writers in 
the New. It may be said that the sacred writings 
were held in high reverence by both schools; 
that they were appealed to as authority; that 
they were esteemed as oracles containing the 
commands of God ; and that it was believed holy 
men had spoken in them as they were moved by 
the Holy Spirit. At the same time, it is appar- 
ent to the unbiassed reader that no such view of 
the infallibility of the record, or of the verbal 
importance of its language, as was subsequently 
maintained in certain quarters, was then held 
by any one. 

2. The earliest teachers of Christianity con- 
tinued the methods of interpretation that had 
been current among the Jews, with modifications 
and departures, according to the demands of per- 
sonal genius or the access of the Spirit. Among 
the Apostolical Fathers, Ignatius and Barnabas 
incline to the allegorical method ; while Clement 



EEVELATION. 17 

(of Rome) and Polycarp are, in their practical 
spirit and their pastoral simplicity, more in ac- 
cord with the style of the New Testament epis- 
tles. The latter remark applies equally to the 
lately discovered document, " The Teaching of 
the Twelve Apostles," which there is some rea- 
son for thinking belongs to the same period. A 
similar line of difference in method marks off 
certain of the Cliurch Fathers, as Tertullian and 
Clement (of Alexandria), from others, as the 
great Origen and Gregory Nazianzen, who rev- 
elled in allegory. It has been observed by the 
historians of Church opinions that all of the more 
eminent of the Fathers may be quoted on both 
sides of what has been described as " high doc- 
trine" concerning the inspiration of the Scrip- 
tures. The fact in regard to the view held by 
the Fathers generally, including Augustine and 
Chrysostom, has been fairly summed up by Tho- 
luck in the remark : " Although they had a 
general impression of the divinely inspired char- 
acter of Scripture, the opinion that its language 
was human and imperfect was held to be un- 
mistakable." 1 

1 The Doctrine of Inspiration (Translation), in Kitto's Jour- 
nal of Sacred Literature. 

2 



18 REVELATION. 

3. The period from Augustine to the Protes- 
tant Reformation is not marked by any change 
of view among Biblical scholars concerning Holy 
Scripture. Definite opinions, based on specula- 
tion or on careful criticism, are not to be met 
with. The traditional view seems to have been 
held by such scholastics as Aquinas and Abelard, 
by Bellarmine, by Erasmus, and by other writers 
of this Middle Period, who, while of equal author- 
ity in their own day, are less known to ours. 
But with the Reformation arose a definite new 
theory, — the "high doctrine" already referred 
to. This theory, gradually developed, and finally 
taken up as a complete defence of Protestantism 
against the dogma of Church authority, affirmed, 
as expounded by Professor Voetius of the Univer- 
sity of Utrecht, that " not a word is contained 
in the Holy Scriptures which was not in the 
strictest sense inspired, the very interpunctuation 
not excepted : even what the writers previously 
knew was given them afresh by inspiration." 
Professor Gaussen, of Geneva, at a later date 
published an elaborate defence^ of the extreme 
doctrine, holding that the Divine Spirit exercised 

1 Theopneustia, translated by Dr. E. N. Kirk. New York: 
1850. 



EEVELATION. 19 

such power over the authors of the Holy Scrip- 
tures as " to guide them even in the employment 
of the words they were to use, and to preserve 
them from all error, as well as from every omis- 
sion." In England, in America, and particularly 
in Scotland, this was for nearly two hundred 
years the orthodox theory of the way in which 
the Scriptures were produced. In some instances 
theologians recurred to the earlier and more 
moderate doctrine ; but the prevalent teaching 
on the subject, over nearly the whole extent of 
Protestant Christendom, from the middle of the 
seventeenth till after the close of the eighteenth 
century, was that of the " Consensus Helvetici," 
which sought to substitute an infallible Bible for 
an infallible Church. 

4. The remaining theories may be included 
under two classes, — the Rationalistic and the 
Reasonable. The Rationalistic discerns nothing 
supernatural nor authoritative in the Scriptures 
or in the way in which they were produced. The 
Bible is a collection of religious books, peculiar 
among books in their topic and interesting as 
literature ; but they are, in whole and in every 
part, of strictly human origin. The alleged su- 
pernatural and miraculous phenomena in them 



20 REVELATION. 

are to be regarded as instances of the credulity 
or of the myth-making faculty of mankind. The 
Bible cannot be considered a revelation in any 
sense in which Plato, Goethe, Shakspeare, are 
not also a revelation. 

What we take the liberty of terming the 
Reasonable view, maintains that the Bible is 
the Word of God, as no other book can claim 
to be ; that it is the record of a particular and 
progressive disclosure of God, culminating in 
the person and mission of Jesus Christ; that 
by no fair construction either of its history or 
its contents can the Biblical record be made 
to assume the character of a legendary accretion, 
in which certain very commonplace facts of 
human history have been gradually wrought 
over and raised into supernatural occurrences; 
but that the opposite is the true order of facts 
and events, — namely, that certain extraordinary 
disclosures of Divine truth and power and 
providence have taken an obviously human 
setting ; and that a principal value of the Reve- 
lation made through the Bible consists in the 
effect it has to authenticate and give meaning 
to the revelations made by other means. 

This view does not encumber itself with the 



REVELATION. 21 

^os^-Reformation dogma of plenary inspiration, 
nor with the defence and reconciliation of pal- 
pable errors in chronology, history, and science. 
It leaves room for the free play of reverent 
criticism ; and while it is not quite credulous 
enough to accept all the surmises and vigorous, 
not to say violent, redactions of Wellhausen, 
Kuenen, and their school, still less to entertain 
anything more than mild compassion for the 
romancing of some of their imitators, it per- 
mits a lively interest in all genuine research, 
confident that when the whole truth is known 
the Bible will stand stronger in the faith and 
affection of the world.^ 

Y. — Is A Special Revelation Necessary? 
Is IT Probable? 

It was said in the last section that a 
principal value of the revelation made through 

1 The most thorough, scholarly, and enlightened presenta- 
tion of what we have styled " The Reasonable View " to 
be met with in English is Dr. Geo. T. Ladd's " Doctrine 
of Sacred Scripture : A Critical, Historical, and Dogmatic 
Inquiry into the Origin and Nature of the Old and New 
Testaments," 2 vols., 1886. Dr. Ladd has since given in a 
briefer and more popular form the principal results of the 
more elaborate treatise in a single volume, entitled " What 
is the Bible '? " 



22 EEVELATION. 

the Bible is the effect it has to authenticate 
the revelations made through other channels. 
It is worth while to look into this proposition 
more critically and see what warrant it has; 
for this is a pivotal point in our study. It is 
a debatable question whether, if God had not 
spoken by the mouth of prophets and apos- 
tles, that is, by some method of special dis- 
closure. His creation and providence would 
have made Him known to man. Let us admit, 
however, that the human mind could and 
would come to a more or less firm conviction 
of the reality of Divine Being, without par- 
ticular aid, and by processes similar to those 
employed in acquiring a knowledge of Nature. 
Let us go farther, and say, that by induction, 
analogy, and intuition men might reach all the 
conclusions affirmed by Christianity, — such as 
the existence of God, the law of righteousness, 
the duty of love, the spiritual and immortal na- 
ture of man, — still it will appear on examina- 
tion that the disclosure known as revelation is 
by no means rendered unnecessary. 

1. In the absence of a revelation it cannot 
be supposed that it would be more easy than 
now to awaken interest in religious truth. If 



REVELATION. 23 

we had no " Thus saith the Lord " we should 
still have the ignorant, the indifferent, the un- 
religious and the irreligious to deal with. 
Those of us persuaded of the truths of religion 
would then as now feel their solemnity and 
importance, and would be trying to make oth- 
ers feel them. What would be our method? 
We should be obliged to conduct an argument 
of the same general nature as that now em- 
ployed in treatises on Natural Theology. We 
should appeal to reason and depend on infer- 
ence. We should attempt to make out by 
these means the truths of the being of God, 
of the immortality of man, of accountability, 
of forgiveness, of salvation. Let us suppose 
that we were entirely successful in our argu- 
ment; that our reasoning were flawless and 
our conclusions valid: would they be likely to 
produce conviction? Would they awaken and 
maintain interest in the great themes dis- 
cussed ? We suspect not. 

2. For our most reasonable as well as our 
most sceptical hearers would be wholly justi- 
fied in responding to our elaborate argument, 
— as we cannot doubt they would respond : 
" Your reasoning is plausible, but far from 



24 EEVELATION. 

convincing. You affirm that there is a God. 
You say He is intimately related to men 
and deeply interested in their welfare ; that 
He has been doing good to them and caring 
for them from the beginning; and that when 
they pass out of this world He receives them 
into His more immediate presence. How is 
all this to be reconciled with the fact that not 
an intelligible word or sign has ever come 
from Him or from His realm ? He is, by your 
hypothesis, a person, free, mighty, loving. 
What has hindered Him from making himself 
known, in some direct and unmistakable man- 
ner, in the long period since man began to 
exist on this planet? Is it credible that there 
is such a Being as you describe and ask 
others to believe in, and yet no race nor gen- 
eration of men ever heard from Him ? Do 
you not see that one line of communication 
from Him would be worth more than a whole 
library of inferential reasonings ? '* 

3. That such would be the attitude of those 
we should seek to persuade, in the absence of 
any special revelation, there is no reason to 
doubt. Those who now are swift to assure us 
that a special revelation is an impertinence 



REVELATION. 25 

would be the first to taunt us with the fatal fact 
that no such revelation had been made. That 
is to say, if we had no revelation, the argument 
for the truths of religion remaining just the 
same, we should desire a revelation to render our 
argument conclusive. The circumstance that no 
means of verifying our reasoning existed could 
not fail to leave our religious science in a con- 
dition of hopeless embarrassment. 

4. It is impossible, we think, to put the need 
of a special revelation in a stronger light. The 
case is analogous to that of the astronomers 
before the invention of the telescope. An as- 
tronomer might demonstrate to his own satis- 
faction, and to that of most other astronomers, 
the existence of a planet, or other celestial body, 
in a given quarter of the heavens ; but none of 
them could see it. No instrument known to 
science could penetrate so far into space. Now 
they might all agree in saying that the demon- 
stration was so perfect as to make sight super- 
fluous. They might exhibit impatience with 
those who refused to put perfect faith in their 
calculations, and loudly insist that disbelief in 
such a case is mere contumacy. But can there 
be a doubt that every man of them would be 



26 EEVELATIOK 

glad to find a way of looking to the spot and 
verifying his prediction ? What would be thought 
of the sanity of the astronomer who, in these 
circumstances, decried the utility of telescopes, 
and professed himself pleased that there was 
none powerful enough to draw to earth the dis- 
tant stranger's beam ? Is it not too apparent 
to require a word of testimony, that all astrono- 
mers, and all other persons having any acquaint- 
ance with such subjects, would experience a 
thrill of joy on the announcement that Rosse or 
Clarke had perfected an instrument which ena- 
bled the human eye to look upon the very face 
of the planet known hitherto only by computa- 
tion ? All a ^priori objections to a revelation 
fall to the ground before the undeniable truth 
that if we had no such revelation, all persons 
would wish that we had. The believer would de- 
sire it, that he might be certified of the validity 
of the grounds of his faith : the doubter, that he 
might not be required to take so much on trust. 
5. If a revelation be needful, a revelation is 
probable ; for, apart from the broad general 
principle that the scheme of creation in all its 
parts is such as permits us to expect whatever 
has been found to be necessary to mankind, we 



REVELATION. 27 

can scarcely err in thinking that it would not be 
like God to withhold himself from His children. 
If God is, He must disclose himself. If He does 
not reveal himself, we lack the primary ground 
of belief that He is. It is out of the power of 
any force or authority that can be conceived 
of — creed or canon or church — to maintain 
belief in a God that gives no sign. And if we 
allow that He reveals himself in His works, — in 
nature, man, history, as we are forward to do, — 
yet if it can be successfully maintained that He 
never reveals himself in any other way, a deep 
shadow of doubt at once falls on the verity of 
the opinion that God is disclosed in what are 
called His works. The truth is, both phases of 
revelation stand or fall together. If God is not 
revealed in nature, it is futile to argue that He 
is revealed through the persons and processes of 
which we have the record in our Bible. Con- 
versely, if there has been no such revelation of 
God as the Bible gives account of, the wit of 
man will forever fail to establish even a fair 
presumption that God is disclosing himself in 
nature. It comes to this, then, that the atheist 
is the only one who. can consistently deny the 
probability of historic revelation. 



28 EEVELATION. 

6. The above reasoning does not authorize 
the conclusion that we have in our Bible either 
the only special revelation God has made, or an 
instance of such revelation. That is a different 
question. In a previous section ^ reasons were 
offered for the opinion that the Bible is the 
record of a special revelation. It is in place to 
remark here, that when we see how probable 
and necessary some revelation from God is, we 
are immediately face to face with the question, 
Is Christianity that revelation, or do we seek 
another ? If we were all able to lay aside preju- 
dice and prepossession, it is probable we should 
view this, as well as many other subjects, differ- 
ently from what we now do. But is there any 
good ground for thinking that we should see 
reasons for selecting some other system, or, 
finally, for discarding the Christian as wanting 
the essential marks of a revelation? 

YI. — Difficulties. 

The common difficulty of all religions is in the 

fact that they have their ground in the assumed 

reality of things unseen. Sense and spirit are 

the two poles of thought and the two realms 

1 See pp. 11, 12. 



REVELATION. 29 

of being. In the body we are compelled to 
deal primarily and continually with the former. 
Things and realms apprehensible by means of 
the senses are said to be matters of knowledge. 
The thoughtful and educated recognize, also, the 
reality of many things for a knowledge of which 
we are not dependent on the senses, — like the 
properties of numbers, the relation of ideas, the 
perception of truth. But neither the common 
nor the educated mind readily takes hold of 
the fact that tlie power to discern moral truth 
and to make moral discriminations implies a 
spiritual man, as much as the power to distin- 
guish odor or color or weight implies a physical 
man. "Fools and slow of heart," is the not 
inappropriate characterization of multitudes of 
mankind. To this dulness of moral apprehen- 
sion more than to anything else is to be attrib- 
uted that mood of mind which staggers at the 
promises of God. Inability to discern spiritual 
truth, whether due to an unawakened moral 
nature or to wilful disregard of the claims of 
that nature, is the explanation of most of the 
difficulties with which unbelief invests religion. 
It is usual to speak of " the difficulties of reli- 
gion : " it would be more accurate to speak of 



30 REVELATION. 

the difficulties of irreligion ; for it is the irre- 
ligious temper that creates the difficulties. And 
this temper pervades more or less all persons. 
It is an inevitable concomitant of our earthly 
environment. 

1. But a religion of which revelation is the 
prominent feature presents peculiar obstacles 
to human infirmity. Besides dealing with the 
spiritual and unseen, and thus drawing from the 
start on faith, it assumes the supernatural and 
asserts the miraculous. To the superstitious, 
whose credulity is more active than their judg- 
ment, these elements constitute an attraction ; 
but to the prosaic part of mankind, to the 
critical and contentious, to such as have had 
their wits sharpened without a corresponding 
development of reverence, to students of the 
phenomena of the natural world in which physi- 
cal effects are exactly measured by physical 
causes, to students of mythology, folk-lore, and 
fable, and, in fine, to many careful and sincere 
truth-seekers, who are desirous of knowing just 
what the fact is, and who are cautious because 
they would not be deceived, — the supernatural 
and miracle are impediments in the way of a 
hearty acceptance of the Christian religion. 



REVELATION. 81 

2. In our day we have conditions in the relig- 
ious world which did not belong to any former 
era. There are large numbers of people — how 
large no one can tell — in actual or nominal 
relation with the churches, comprising in some 
instances a considerable proportion of a whole 
denomination, who are in real difficulty — we had 
almost said distress — on account of the fact that 
Christianity is encumbered, as they think, with 
miracle. They are not critics of Christianity, 
nor uninterested outsiders : Christianity is their 
religion. They are ardently attached to it, and 
disposed to share its fortunes. They appreciate 
its vast services to mankind and its great worth. 
They desire to see it " still full high advanced," 
and would esteem its destruction or decline an 
unspeakable calamity. But its supernaturalism 
and its miracles appear to them not only an un- 
essential part of the system, but a hindrance and 
misfortune. They do not see how it could be 
done, but they do not conceal their conviction 
that if the entire texture of supernaturalism 
were eliminated from Christianity it would be 
an immense gain. 

3. Such an extraordinary state of facts in 
the community of Christians demands attention. 



32 REVELATION. 

It may be dealt with in two ways : It may be 
treated with indignation and scorn, as iniqui- 
tous and inexcusable disloyalty to the cause, 
or it may be looked on as a phenomenon of 
the age, due to peculiar causes which have not 
always been at work. So viewed, it may be 
studied in a sympathetic spirit, its real signifi- 
cance and its true motive discerned ; allowance 
may be made for it ; alarm on one side and 
irritation on the other allayed ; and efforts made 
to remove the difficulty, which is recognized as 
real, not by scolding, but by patient and thorough 
examination. The latter, we scarcely need add, 
is in our judgment the proper course. In the 
restricted space at our command we can do little 
more in this place than give a sample of the 
method we approve. 

(1) Let it be observed, in the first place, that 
supernatural phenomena, whether fact or fiction, 
do not comprise the subject-matter of revelation. 
They are incidental only. The staple of revela- 
tion is made up of truths, ideas, ordinances, 
facts disclosed ; or, as in the case of Christianity, 
of a person who embodies these. Portents and 
miracles are incidental only. They derive their 
importance from two circumstances : (a) That 



. REVELATION. 83 

they challenge belief ; (Z>) That they are univer- 
sally regarded as inseparable from a revelation. 

(2) Are they inseparable ? Can there be no 
disclosure of God to man — no direct, per- 
sonal, palpable disclosure, without supernatural 
accompaniments? This is the kernel of the 
matter. Let us analyze the event to which 
this name " revelation " is given. It is the 
communication from God, a spiritual person, 
of facts, truths, ideas, precepts, — an order of 
life, — to men, spiritual persons. In the one 
case, however, the spiritual personality is un- 
veiled and without shadow : in the other it is 
veiled in flesh. God is not hidden: it is we 
that are masked in flesh. And because this 
is so, our only means of apprehension is 
through this veil, — through our physical or- 
gans. We cannot know God, therefore, unless 
He "becomes like one of us," appearing 
in physical form; or unless we temporarily 
emerge ^ from our bodily vesture. If God 
should manifest himself in the flesh we could 
know Him as we know each other. If we 
should transcend in some way our physical 
environment, it is conceivable that we might 
know God as spirit knows spirit. But either 
3 



34 REVELATION, 

of these things, accomplished in this world 
and among men, would constitute a supernat- 
ural occurrence. The supernaturalism inheres 
in the nature of the case. 

(3) The other possible modes of making a 
revelation, as we conceive the subject, are, 
(a) that God might select a human medium 
of communication, whom He should suitably 
endow or inspire. This would plainly be an 
act transcending human experience and hu- 
man power, and so answering to the idea of 
the supernatural. (5) He might choose a celes- 
tial messenger, and send him to men. But the 
appearance of such a messenger among men 
would be, obviously, a supernatural event. (<?) 
He might inspire directly, either each indi- 
vidual of the race, or such individuals as 
might be favorably situated for spreading the 
knowledge with which they should be thus 
possessed. 

Some persons, who evidently have not 
thought profoundly on the subject, suppose 
that in the last case we should have reve- 
lation without supernatural accompaniment. 
God puts His impulse, or sentiments, or 
ideas into men's minds, it is said, as He 



REVELATION. 35 

puts His breath into their nostrils. They 
give forth what is inspired in them, uncon- 
scious that it is more than their ordinary- 
thinking, or, at least, unaware that it is from 
any higher source. But it is recognized by 
mankind, is carefully treasured, and in due 
time finds its place with the sacred scriptures 
of the world. 

(4) This theory of the facts is hardly sat- 
isfactory. In the first place, it is to be said, 
that the inspiration of the individual is either 
real or fictitious. If it is fictitious, nothing 
is communicated. If it is real, then the im- 
pulses, ideas, sentiments, are actually imparted 
to the human spirit by the Divine Spirit. 
Again, either these impulses, sentiments, ideas, 
are something more than the regular stock of 
human thought, or there is nothing given 
which it is not a misuse of language to 
designate as " revelation ; " nothing, therefore, 
for mankind to recognize. For recognition im- 
plies certain marks by which a thing may be 
distinguished from other things. But unless 
there is something more than the normal prod- 
ucts of thought, how is mankind to detect 
and separate the products of inspiration ? 



ZQ REVELATION. 

The moment we put our minds closely to 
the facts, we see that the alternative is either 
to admit an event for which there is no 
strictly natural explanation, and which is, 
therefore, correctly described as supernatural, 
or discard the notion of a revelation alto- 
gether. The essence of the matter is, that 
knowledge and impulses are conveyed to men 
from God; and that they are of such a nature 
as to stamp them, either at the time or finally, 
as of superhuman origin. Whether the mind 
to whom they are imparted is conscious of 
their source or not, cannot alter the fact 
that they are of a special character, that they 
are from above, in a sense different from that 
in which mathematical or philosophical knowl- 
edge is from above, and that the Divine Mind 
was moved to communicate them. 

Vll. — Miracle. 

What has been said of the supernatural in 
general leads up to a particular inquiry con- 
cerning miracle. The supernatural is the 
genus : miracle is the species. The idea of 
the supernatural is, that God discloses him- 
self in a way of freedom analogous to that 



BEVELATION. 37 

in which human personality is shown. Law 
is always impersonal. There is not a known 
instance of personality expressed by law. If 
the activities of human beings were the mani- 
festations of law, and law only, men would 
not be distinguishable from other objects — ■ 
plants, minerals, gases — in which the energies 
of nature appear. It is the apprehension that 
their activities are, for the most part, self- 
determined, which gives rise to the notion of 
their personality. Freedom, real freedom, is 
of the essence of our own nature, and is the 
mark by which we are distinguished from all 
below us. 

1. Attention to the problem will press on 
the mind the conviction that the Divine Per- 
sonality is disclosed in a way exactly similar 
to that in which the human personality an- 
nounces itself. If we could hold fast consist- 
ently to the idea that God manifests himself 
only through unvarying law, the result would 
be that we should cease to think of God as a 
person. And if we ceased to think of Him 
as a person, we should presently lose Him al- 
together; for as an impersonal man is no 
man at all, so an impersonal God is no God 



38 EEVELATION. 

at all. It follows, that if we are to retain 
the idea of God, not to say belief in Him, 
we must conceive of Him as a person ; and if 
we conceive of Him as a person, we must 
attribute to Him a freedom of action incom- 
patible with the notion that He never discloses 
himself except through unvarying law. 

2. It thus appears that the very idea of God 
carries with it the idea of the supernatural. 
He who denies the supernatural logically de- 
nies God; for the supernatural is, in idea, the 
conception of Divine action determined by a 
free spirit, after the analogy of human action, 
instead of action constrained by necessity. 
All the reasons ever offered for rejecting su- 
pernaturalism are found on analysis to be 
equally reasons for rejecting theism. To say 
that there is a God, personal and free, and to 
follow that declaration by saying that He must 
not be supposed ever to act in His universe in 
any way different from that in which atoms or 
energies act, is to approach dangerously near 
self-contradiction. 

3. It may be thought that such self-con- 
tradiction is avoided by the hypothesis that 
action on the part of a perfect being, who is 



REVELATION. 39 

also free, takes the form of unvarying law. 
That is His mode. His freedom is located at 
the point of His choice of a regulated and 
unchanging order. It is not the order which 
/ constrains Him, but His perfection that re- 
quires the order. In the eternal order of the 
creation, it is said, we have the characteristic 
mark of God ; in all things unstable and 
capricious we recognize imperfect man. 

That unchanging order is a mode of the 
Divine manifestation is unquestionable ; but 
that it is the mode is incapable of proof, and 
is intrinsically improbable. So far as we 
know, the more perfect a being is the more 
spontaneous and voluntary do his activities 
become ; the less is he under law. A dis- 
tinction is to be observed between the ^^se 
of a regulated order and subserviency to it. 
The use of such an order evinces perfection: 
at the same time, and in the same degree, 
perfection disdains the bondage of an order 
which is its instrument and not its autocrat. 
If we grant — what no one can know to be 
the fact — that God chose law as the mode 
of His manifestation, and the sole mode, the 
supernaturalism remains. He who supposes 



40 EEVELATION. 

that God at the beginning, by a free act, 
precisely similar to that by which Aristotle 
chose his method of communicating instruc- 
tion to his royal pupil, made law His mode 
of manifestation, must conceive that God 
acted, at that point, in just the way which 
the supernaturalist contends that He has since 
acted. It is simply the difference between 
locating the phenomenon at the beginning or 
subsequently. Unless we make the mode of 
the Divine manifestation a necessary mode, 
by which He is bound, so that He cannot 
manifest himself otherwise, it is plain that 
there was a period when He was not confined 
to law — certainly not to the laws observed 
by us. It comes, then, to the same complex- 
ion at last. We are super naturalists, in some 
fashion, if we are theists. We may choose 
to be eccentric about it, or we may fall into 
line with the view of the great thinkers in 
philosophy and in religion ; but we cannot 
separate things which the laws of thought 
make parts of one whole.^ 

1 Here it is, in this intellectual presupposition of any 
emerging world, this prior condition of the natural, that we 
meet a persistent "supernatural," in the idea of which the 
very essence of the religious problem lies, and without ref- 



REVELATION. 41 

4. Now a miracle is an instance of the 
supernatural.^ In other terms, it is an ex- 
pression, in a given case, of that free per- 
sonal action which is inseparable from our 
idea of a personal God. But God may be 
acting in that manner, for aught that we 
know, continually and in every part of His 
creation. What is it that brings any instance 
of such action by Him to our particular 
notice ? It is its occurrence in the realm 
with which we are in contact by our physical 
senses. In that realm we are accustomed to 
expect uniform antecedents to occurrences. 
The only conceivable exceptions are where 
a being possessed of volition intervenes. We 
explain all such exceptions at once by refer- 
ence to the action of that personal force 

erence to which the order of Nature can tell us of nothing 
but itself; for God is not there. Nature therefore can never 
swallow up the supernatural, any more than time can swal- 
low up eternity; they subsist and are intelligible only to- 
gether ; and nothing can be more mistaken than to treat 
them as mutually exclusive. — James Martineau : A Study 
of Religion, vol. i. pp. 7, 8. 

1 A miracle is an event which the forces of Nature — 
including the natural powers of man — cannot of them- 
selves produce, and which must therefore be referred to 
a supernatural agency. — Prof. G. P Fisher : Christian Evi- 
dences, p. 9. Compare " What is the Bible?" p. 156 et seq. 



42 REVELATION. 

called will. But so far as human beings are 
concerned, an act of will, while in its incep- 
tion and in its connection with the physical 
organism quite as inexplicable as any miracle, 
can only be manifest to others than the actor 
through the body ; and the activities of the 
body are open to inspection by the senses. 
The effects produced in our world hy the 
intervention of the human will are, therefore, 
classed as natural phenomena,^ of which sci- 
ence can give account. But effects produced 
in our world without the use of physical 
agents, and which are not referable to any 
law of Nature, are attributed to the Divine 
"Will and are classed as miracles. A miracle, 
then, follows the analogy of events produced 
by the intervention of the human will : the dif- 



1 Not, however, by all. Horace Bushnell, in his celebrated 
treatise, entitled "Nature and the Supernatural," classes all 
acts springing directly from will as supernatural. The late 
President Mark Hopkins, adopting the theory of Bushnell, 
states the case in these words : " If that which is in God 
be not nature, but supernatural, why should we call that 
in us by which we are in the image of God, nature 1 Here 
I suppose we find the true line between nature and the 
supernatural. All spirit and spiritual activity, whether it 
be morally good or evil, is supernatural. All free causation 
is supernatural. — Outline Study of Man, p. 258. 



REVELATION. 43 

ference being that in the one case the means 
used by the will are apparent, in the other they 
are not. This is the essence of the phenome- 
non called a miracle. It is the sign of the pres- 
ence of God in the realm of physical causation, 
acting in the freedom of His personality where 
He ordinarily acts by the method of law.^ 

5. It is the opinion — perhaps we should 
say conviction — of many persons that "mir- 
acles do not happen." If, after a candid and 
patient examination of the alleged event, one 
is persuaded that miracle does not happen, 
there is no more to be said. He sees the fact 
and the reasons as they appear to his mind. 
A review of the subject may change his opin- 
ion; but until the evidence in the case as- 
sumes a different aspect to his mind miracles 
certainly do not exist for him. It is our 
belief, however, that the number of persons 

1 Now if we examine the conception of the miracle 
which seems to be required by the teaching of both the 
Old and the New Testaments, we find that it includes three 
elements. It is implied, in the first place, that a miracle is 
not an event of ordinary experience ; secondly, that it is 
the product of God's immediate presence and activity ; 
thirdly, that it is a sign, or proof, or reminder to men, 
which has a moral and religious significance. — Dr. Geo. 
T. Ladd. " What is the Bible ? " pp. 161, 162. 



44 EEVELATION. 

who have given the question a calm and can- 
did investigation, and as a result have aban- 
doned miracle, is not large. We judge that 
the usual course with those who are found 
denying miracle is to take up a position of 
criticism or hostility to miracles without much 
direct thought on the subject, but as the re- 
sult of personal or literary associations, or on 
account of the influence of the " atmosphere " 
in which their opinions are forming. It is 
matter of observation that opinions on the 
subject are constantly undergoing change, 
both from belief to disbehef and from unbe- 
lief to faith. It is sometimes said that scep- 
ticism is on the increase. So it is in some 
circles; but belief is increasing in other cir- 
cles. On the whole, there can be no doubt 
that the human soul is getting nearer to the 
truth in the premises. To those who think 
that Squire Wendover found the truth it will 
not be questioned that the tendency is to- 
ward discarding miracle ; to us, who hold 
that miracle is as credible as belief in God 
or in immortality, there is not a doubt that 
faith steadily wins the field of thought. 

6. This is not a place where the subject 



REVELATION. 45 

can be drawn out to anything like adequate 
treatment. But it may be noticed that the 
consideration which usually carries the day 
with thoughtful persons is the discovery that 
belief in a personal God and in the super- 
natural stand or fall together. This was 
perceived and candidly admitted by John 
Stuart Mill, who chose the alternative of 
raising the question, whether there is evi- 
dence of the existence of a personal Deity. 
Professor Huxley — another of the most acute 
thinkers and consistent reasoners in the ranks 
of the agnostics — discerns the same fact. In 
a letter to the Spectator^ Feb. 10, 1866, he 
defends himself from the charge of having 
avowed atheism: "I cannot take this position 
with honesty, inasmuch as it is, and always 
has been, a favorite tenet of mine that 
atheism is as absurd, logically speaking, as 
polytheism." In the same letter he remarks, 
"Denying the possibility of miracles seems 
to me quite as unjustifiable as speculative 
atheism." The truth clearly discerned by this 
penetrating mind is, that one who believes 
in a God cannot consistently deny tliat "mira- 
cles happen;" and one who even takes the 
agnostic position, refusing to say whether there 



46 REVELATION. 

is a God or not, is estopped from " denying 
the possibility of miracles " until he is ready 
to announce flatly that there is no God. 

The overwhelming majority of those who 
think on the problem at all are not" willing 
to take even an agnostic position on the sub- 
ject of the existence of God. They cling to 
theism; and it is a mere matter of logic 
whether they shall take with it what all close 
and clear thinkers are not long in discerning 
to be a constituent part, — belief in the super- 
natural with the ■ corollary of miracle. The 
same fact rises to view from another point of 
observation : those who give up the supernat- 
ural and miracle, and adhere to the position, 
are apt to slip by easy and natural stages 
into distrust of the actual personality of God ; 
thence into doubt of the existence of God, — 
agnosticism ; and at that half-way house take 
shelter, until driven out and started, either 
this way toward theism, or that way toward 
atheism. 

7. But it is rejoined. The question is not, 
whether God might work a miracle, but 
whether we have any satisfactory evidence 
that He has or does. " Satisfactory " to 
whom? The evidence that God has done 



REVELATION. 47 

what every theist must allow He can do, has 
seemed "satisfactory" to many millions of 
mankind, including the greater proportion of 
the most acute and learned of our race. It 
is the habit of some writers in our day to 
say — what we presume they have come to 
believe — that the belief in miracle is passing 
away ; that reasonable and well-informed peo- 
ple have given up miracle, as they have the 
idea of a personal Devil ; and that the notion 
lingers only in benighted circles, or among 
persons who, having passed the meridian of 
life, do not readily change their opinions. 
When one looks into the facts this assump- 
tion appears highly ludicrous. Not to go 
outside of Christendom, the fact is that there 
is not a sect of even nominal Christians that 
takes the position of the rejection of miracle. 
There are individuals and parties, or schools, 
in several sects who repudiate the supernat- 
ural. But taken all together they do not 
number as many as a sect like the Quakers 
or the Mennonites. The great sects of Chris- 
tendom, together with almost all the small 
ones, stand on this question where the Church 
has stood from the beginning. It is claimed 



48 REVELATION. 

that the scientists and the influential thinkers 
of the age, most of whom are not in any sect, 
have taken up the position on this subject to 
which all Christians must presently advance. 
It may be so, but there is not more evidence 
of it than there was of the same result at 
the beginning of this century; while the evi- 
dence against it is massive and obstinate. 

It is not, however, the fact that the question 
is what the rejoinder asserts. So far as we 
have noted, the point of controversy always is, 
whether God can work a miracle, — whether it 
is possible. Those who concede that it is pos- 
sible will be remanded to the discussion of its 
probability. This will arise over some alleged 
instance or series of instances. When the dis- 
cussion takes that form each case must be 
examined on its merits. We think it will be 
agreed on all hands, that it would be a most 
extraordinary outcome of the examination of 
the thousands of cases of a phenomenon con- 
ceded to be possible, to find not one that is 
actual. In other terms, we apprehend that the 
real pith of the objector's contention will be 
discovered to be gone when he proceeds on the 
assumption that miracle is possible. For a 



REVELATION. 49 

miracle can only be possible on the assumption 
of the reality of the supernatural. 

8. The space we give to a discussion of the 
supernatural and miracle is warranted, not alone 
by the intrinsic interest of the subject, but by 
its inseparable relation to revelation. We have 
seen that revelation involves the supernatural. 
It is but a different expression of the same fact 
to say that the specific end subserved by miracle 
is to attest revelation. The account given of it 
shows that it is a sign of the presence of a 
Personal Power. " In a miracle the will of God 
acts directly and produces outward effects with 
no intervening agency. This our wills cannot 
do. Hence a miracle is the great seal of God 
to any communication from himself." ^ 

There are those who doubt the validity of this 
position. They say that a revelation, if true, 
attests itself; that the miracle is the part of 
the alleged revelation that taxes belief; and 
that so far from supporting the revelation, mira- 
cles tend to discredit it. It has been remarked 
by a learned and discriminating modern critic : ^ 
" If miracles were, in the estimate of a former 
age, among the chief supports of Christianity, 

1 President Hopkins. ^ Baden Powell. 

4 



50 EEVELATION. 

they are at present among the main difficulties 
and hindrances to its acceptance." 

The force of this objection would be very 
great as against the idea that miracles are 
the only or main support of revelation. This 
position has sometimes been taken by Christian 
apologists ; but it is obviously indefensible. The 
true position, as we apprehend, is that the chief 
vindication of the reality of an alleged revelation 
must be found in the manner in which it bears 
the test to which time subjects it. If it did 
not bear this internal and practical test, neither 
miracles nor any other external supports could 
maintain its credit. But it by no means follows 
that miracles are thereby proved to be unessen- 
tial to revelation. For the fact is, that without 
the impression made in favor of the revelation 
by " signs and wonders and mighty acts," in the 
beginning, it would not have been put to the 
practical test. The first persuasion produced by 
Christianity was that it came from God. This, 
in the beginning, drew attention to it, created 
conviction for it, attached men to it; and it 
was the power of God, witnessed by miracles, 
accompanying the Messenger and the message, 
that wrought this persuasion. We believe in it 



EEVELATION. 51 

now because it has borne the great test; men 
then believed that it would bear the test because 
it was from God. If they had not believed it to 
be from God they would never have accepted it 
and put it to the test. 

Suppose now we turn round and deny the 
miracles with which the planting of our religion 
is historically blended; observe in what a pre- 
dicament we place both the Christian fathers 
and ourselves. They accepted Christianity for 
reasons not only inadequate, but spurious. We 
owe this greatest of blessings to their credulity. 
If they had known how to detect imposture and 
sift evidence we should not have the Gospel. 
But the system which, for reasons wholly un- 
founded, got a chance to be tried, proves to be 
sound and beneficent. That which there was 
every reason to reject beforehand, now vindi- 
cates itself as the system which there is every 
reason to accept. Again, we reject it for the 
very reason that influenced them to accept it. 
But if they had not accepted it for a false cause, 
we should have had no opportunity to accept it 
for a true one. 

Further, the miraculous element, which played 
so essential a part in the beginning and has been 
so closely identified with our religion through- 



52 REVELATION. 

out, remains an integral portion of the structure. 
The suggestion has been made that the mirac- 
ulous element be eliminated. There is no pro- 
cess by which this can be accomplished. The 
natural, the spiritual, the supernatural are in- 
extricably blended in the only records of the 
beginnings of our religion which we possess. 
Together they make the complete and unique 
phenomenon which has attracted the eye and 
won the heart and captured the understanding 
of the best portion of the world. Take out 
the natural, and there is no picture ; take out 
the spiritual or the supernatural, the result 
is the same, — no picture.^ 

YIII. — Inspiration and Revelation. 

The use of the term " inspiration " directs 
thought to the distinction between revelation 
and inspiration. By " revelation," as already 
defined, we understand the disclosure of God to 
men. By " inspiration " we mean a certain ex- 
altation of the human spirit, produced by the 

1 The natural and supernatural are blended in the life and 
teachings of Christ in the most harmonious and vigorous way. 
Those who have been strenuous to reject the one, though they 
have striven long and hard to retain the other, have met 
with very partial success. — President Bascom : Philosophy 
of Religion, p. 261. 



EEVELATION. 53 

action of the Divine Spirit upon it, in which 
the things of God, the realities of the spirit- 
ual world, become subjects of consciousness. It 
is apparent that only persons can be inspired. 
When we speak of the Bible, or of any book 
or document, as " inspired," we do so by the 
figure of speech called metonymy. Strictly 
speaking, language is never inspired. 

1. The terms employed by Saint Paul,^ in 
speaking of the '' sacred writings," have some- 
times been interpreted as teaching that the 
language of the Bible is inspired, — divinely 
breathed (Oeoirveva-ro^'). The only consistent 
position for one to take who advocates this in- 
terpretation is that of the verbal and plenary 
inspiration of the Scriptures already discussed. 
If the language was divinely breathed, it was, 
in the most exact sense, dictated; and the ex- 
treme doctrine of Yoetius, Gaussen, and the post- 
Reformation theologians is established. That 
this is a wholly untenable position, in general, is 
now so uniformly conceded that contention is su- 
perfluous ; but that it is equally an error in this 
particular case, becomes apparent the moment 
we consider the facts. Saint Paul was speaking 

1 2 Timothy iii. 16. 



54 EEVELATION. 

of the Old-Testament Scriptures. We have the 
best possible testimony as to the manner in 
which he regarded the language, or verbal form, 
of those writings ; it is furnished by his own 
frequent use of them in his letters. If he be- 
lieved that the language was inspired, — divinely 
breathed, — he must have felt under a constant 
and solemn obligation to get the exact words in 
every case, and transcribe them with scrupulous 
fidelity. But he has quoted the Old Testament 
with so much latitude of language, in many 
places, as to leave scholars in doubt of the 
identity of the passage. Surely a teacher who 
himself used the sacred writings with so little 
regard to verbal exactness must not be appealed 
to as authority for the doctrine that the lan- 
guage of Scripture was directly dictated by the 
Divine Spirit. The reasonable view is that 
" men spake from God, being moved by the 
Holy Spirit." ^ Their inspiration was from God : 
their speech was their own. 

2. It . is pertinent to remark here, that since 
the exigency which led to the invention of the 
theory of complete verbal inspiration has passed, 
we are able to see that it could not have served 

1 2 Peter i. 21. 



REVELATION. 5o 

the purpose had the fact been as the theory 
supposed. An inspired record of a revelation 
implies inspired transcribers and translators. If 
we could not have the latter, we should miss the 
chief advantage of having the former. Our Eng- 
lish Bible would be only a translation of inspired 
language : it would not be inspired language. 
If we consider the number of various readings 
and of errors that exist in the text, we shall be 
less eager to fasten a theory on our Bible that 
at this date would be quite as likely to stereo- 
type error as to preserve truth. Time was when 
even Christian scholars imagined that the fact 
in the case could be altered by a theory or by 
belief. Let us hope that a better mind now 
universally prevails ; that Christian scholars, at 
least, are convinced of the futility, if not of the 
wickedness, of trying to make the fact to be 
other than it is ; and that the public is desirous, 
not of believing this or that because it is " safe " 
or " orthodox," but of knowing the truth and 
standing on it. 

IX. — Ends which Revelation Subserves. 

We turn now to a question of high practi- 
cal concern : What particular ends does an his- 



; 



56 REVELATION. 

toric revelation subserve ? A general answer to 
this question has been anticipated in showing 
the dependence of the natural disclosures of 
God on the supernatural. The great end ac- 
complished by a special revelation is, undoubt- 
edly, to confirm to mankind the truth of the 
persuasion borne in on the mind from a study 
of physical nature and of human history. 

1. But there are certain particular ends 
which a revelation serves in the economy of 
Providence, first among which may be no- 
ticed the effect it has on religion. Eeligion 
has two principal parts: (1) the objective 
facts, — God, duty, immortality, and the whole 
circle and system of doctrines that arise out 
of these great ideas ; (2) the subjective con- 
sciousness of God, duty, immortality, and the 
related facts ; which converts theology into 
piety, ethics into righteousness, and dogma 
into faith. The greatest service which can 
be performed for religion is to translate its 
facts into faiths ; in other words, to make men 
conscious of its great realities, so that what 
they assent to as propositions of the reason 
they shall feel as vital impulses of the soul. 
This is the hard thing to accomplish in relig- 



REVELATION. 57 

ion. Here is where the work of the Church 
lags, and the hearer of the word, going away 
and forgetting what manner of spirit he is of, 
ceases to be a doer of the word. Any influ- 
ence contributing even temporarily to this 
high end would be of great value ; but an 
influence drawing men steadily and power- 
fully in this direction must be set down 
among the chief motive forces of religion. 

Such revelation is. Its touch communicates 
life to religion. Whatever any one may hold 
as to revelation, whether he believes in it or 
rejects it, he must concede that the effect of 
it in the world and on religion has been con- 
tinuously powerful. It is in connection with 
what is believed to be a revelation from God 
that religion has its career as an institution 
in our world ; and its organized forces, its 
conquests, and its mighty influence are all his- 
torically associated with revelation. Not only 
is this true of the Christian religion; it is the 
fact in nearly the same measure with the 
other great religions of mankind. All have 
received the quickening and impetus which 
instituted them and gave them at once diffu- 
sive energy and authority, from a real or im- 



58 EEVELATION. 

agined disclosure of the Divine will. Whether 
a strictly natural religion could develop the 
motive-power to organize and extend and 
perpetuate itself, we have no means of know- 
ing, because we have no example of anything 
of the kind.i 

2. The philosophy of the effect of revela- 
tion on religion is not obscure. It is wholly 
rational and explicable. The truth which rev- 
elation affirms is the truth which the hu- 
man spirit prophesies. That God is, and that 
there is another and more permanent realm 
than this with which we are in contact by 
our senses, is the prepossession of the soul. 
To this prepossession the action of the under- 
standing on the facts, principles, and pro- 
cesses of nature, ministers. Only one thing 
is wanting to kindle this deep prepossession 

1 The only exception to this remark which would be 
likely to occur to any one is, we judge, the religion of 
the Chinese, or that part of their religion derived from Con- 
fucius. Whether this constitutes a real exception depends on 
the definition that should be given to the word "reUgion," 
as well as upon a due consideration of all the elements that 
enter into the great rehgio-ethical system of the Chinese 
sage. If it should be considered an exception to the rule 
stated above, it will not be found to be more so than the 
Chinese are among the races of mankind. 



REVELATION. 59 

into enthusiastic faith; that one thing is the 
personal tidings from God and the spiritual 
realm which revelation supplies. As astro- 
nomy rises up triumphant, a new science and 
a new power in the world, from the moment 
the telescope begins to verify the predictions 
of the astronomer by revealing the orb he 
had located by calculation, so religion, rein- 
forced by revelation, takes on new life, feels 
the spring of fresh energy, goes forth in the 
assurance of victory to the conquest of the 
nations. Revelation not only satisfies a rea- 
sonable demand of the intellect: it inspires 
the soul. It is the Divine touch, at which 
humanity thrills and rises to newness of life. 
Historically, revelation has been like the com- 
ing of spring to the seed-germs: it has started 
into high and continuous activity the moral 
energies of man. 

3. Descending from these more general 
ends to which revelation contributes, we may 
observe others that are special. As a free 
being it devolves on man to determine what 
shall be the aim of his life. He is possessed 
of energies: what use shall he make of them? 
He is gifted with powers : in what directions 



60 EEVELATION. 

shall he guide their activity? The answer to 
these questions waits on the answer to an- 
other. Who and what is he ? He will an- 
swer those inquiries according to the idea he 
has of his own rank in the scale of being. If 
he takes himself to be an animal merely, — with 
an intellectual attachment, perhaps, but still 
essentially and finally an animal, — he will 
solve the question as to the aim of life and 
the use of his powers in one way : he will 
be apt to adopt the ancient formula, "Let us 
eat and drink, for to-morrow we die." If he 
takes himself to be a child of God, heir of 
immortality, and capable of indefinite expan- 
sion in knowledge and goodness, he will an- 
swer the question in another and quite 
different way. For it all hinges on what 
he really is, — on his rank in the scale of 
being. He can set his sails for this port or 
that. His value to himself and to the world 
depends on whether he sets them for this 
port or that. 

It is apparent at once that the whole as- 
pect of a man's life is changed by the proper 
answer to this profoundly interesting and su- 
premely important inquiry. Indeed, the most 



REVELATION. 61 

subtle and destructive enemy of high endeavor 
is the doubt that lurks in so many minds, 
whether, after all, their destiny is not to lie 
down with the brutes at last, in a common 
utter extinction. Doubt is what damns men. 
If none of us ever doubted that God is, as 
really as we are; that our being is linked to 
His ; and that we are, therefore, shut up to a 
final necessity of seeking our good and joy 
in that which is good in His sight, — none of 
us would ever swerve far from rectitude. It is 
our distrust of this glorious and saving truth 
that hands us over to the service of evil. 
Anything, therefore, however disagreeable or 
painful, that awakens us to the eternal fact, 
and keeps vigilant in us the consciousness 
of our Divine birthright, is an unspeakable 
blessing. Sorrow, disappointment, loss, are, 
indeed, sanctified as well as justified, if they 
have the effect to break the fetters of sense 
and set the spirit free. 

But there is a more excellent way. It 
should not be necessary that we be stripped 
of earthly goods and scourged, in order that 
we become alive to heavenly joy. Access of 
worldly properties and honors ought not to 



62 REVELATION. 

dull the soul's sensibility. On the contrary, 
growth in power and means and influence 
should stimulate the inner and true life of 
the spirit. It would, if the conviction of the 
reality, and hence of the transcendent superi- 
ority, of spiritual things were present with us 
from the beginning. But too often, too uni- 
formly, this conviction, instead of arming and 
guarding us from the first, is among the last 
resources we acquire. 

4. Revelation answers the important in- 
quiry by assuring man that there is a perma- 
nent part of him, and that it is spirit. His 
rank is determined by his origin, as the rank 
of every being is. Origin concludes nature 
and destiny. So much of man as had its 
origin in dust must return to dust. If that 
is the whole story as to his origin, that also 
is the whole story as to his destiny. In af- 
firming the super-physical and divine origin 
of man revelation touches the precise spring 
that vibrates to moral truth and immortal 
hope. The facts are not changed ; man is no 
more than before. But the fact is certified, 
and the spirit within leaps in recognizing 
response to the spirit without. 



REVELATION. 63 

5. The manner in which this end is ac- 
complished can only be hinted here. Con- 
sider that the common trait of revealed 
religion is a complement of organized in- 
strumentalities for worship and for work. 
Consider the educating influence of the ser- 
vices and symbols, declaring the majesty and 
authority of the Eternal and proclaiming the 
spiritual kinship of man with God. Regularly 
and almost daily the eye receives the impres- 
sive lesson and passes it on to the mind. 
Our worship is often described as " barren ; " 
and so it is. Yet, should we take from it all 
that appeals to eye and ear — to the senses 
— and all that is addressed to the social na- 
ture and the sentiment of beauty, we should 
have a new perception of the meaning of the 
word "barren." So much does even our se- 
vere simplicity of worship yet depend on ex- 
ternal impressions. But in the earlier day this 
vast resource was used in a degree that seems 
to us now childish. Rather it was adapted 
to childhood; it was the wise means employed 
by the Author of religion to print its eternal 
facts deep into the consciousness of the race. 

6. If mankind were fully enlightened, and 



64 REVELATION. 

could be depended on to be perfectly self-con- 
sistent, we should calculate that having deter- 
mined their rank in the creation, and seen the 
ends to which their style of being points, they 
would be found unanimously pursuing the ap- 
pointed path of life. But if there is one thing 
in regard to which we may be entirely certain, 
it is that men are not agreed in following out 
the ends contemplated in their nature. If it is 
allowable to say that they all desire one thing 
ultimately, as happiness, it does not admit of 
dispute that they go many ways — frequently 
opposite ways — to attain it. Ignorance of what 
is best for them lies at the root of most of the 
folly displayed in this particular. It may be con- 
tended with much force that men know better 
than they do ; that it is their conceit of their 
own wisdom, allied with a large human element 
of pure perversity, that is at fault ; and that the 
remainder may be explained by the inveterate 
preference of the average mortal for darkness 
to light. 

This is a plausible indictment, certainly ; but 
it is hardly judicial. When, in one of our heated 
political campaigns, we find the journals and 
orators of each of the great political parties 



REVELATION. 65 

charging that the other party is actuated at 
bottom by base motives, and that the member- 
ship of the other party — comprising one half the 
people of the country — are really bent on bring- 
ing down around their heads the goodly fabric of 
free government, we make the necessary deduc- 
tions and allowances for partisan inflammation 
and the exigencies of the campaign. As matter 
of fact, most of the people on both sides are 
patriotic and equally desirous of advancing them- 
selves and their country in prosperity and honor. 
It is much the same with the question before 
us. In our haste we accuse our fellow-men of 
utter depravity and perversity. We say they 
know better ; that they are bent on wrong, and 
only satisfied with iniquity. But in our sober 
moods we do not frame an indictment that 
sweeps ourselves, along with condemned hu- 
manity, into the criminal's dock. We discrimi- 
nate and we try to be just ; and we say that lack 
of enlightenment, mistake as to true well-being, 
inability to perceive the real ends of human ex- 
istence, and a sad incapacity to appreciate and 
enjoy the higher range of motive and activity, 
are the explanation of an incalculable amount of 
wrong-doing and low living. 

5 



Q6 EEVELATIOK 

In this mood we study carefully the springs 
of human conduct, and come presently to a set- 
tled conviction that we can never expect to have 
a really good world until we can get into men's 
minds a luminous idea of what goodness is. 
The life of any nation, of any family, of almost 
any individual, is a translation of the concep- 
tions of the nation, family, or individual. As 
an author can put no more complete and exact 
" system " of any subject — philosophy, ethics, 
theology, astronomy — into his book than exists 
already in his mind, so it is not rational to ex- 
pect a type of life from any portion of mankind 
higher than the ideas of life which that portion 
of mankind entertains. All efforts to improve 
any class will be futile, or at best will result in 
a merely transient change of habit, unless their 
minds are opened and elevated so as to admit 
truer and loftier conceptions. 

7. Now revelation indicates its divine mission 
to men at just this point of need. It teaches 
them what their real good is, on the authority of 
Him who created them and who therefore knows. 
The various and conflicting opinions they have 
on that subject are an obviously unsafe guide. 
If they could have just what they most need, 



REVELATION. 67 

and what in their sanest moments they most 
ardently desire, it would be an authoritative 
statement of what is best for them. This is 
what revelation furnishes. In both Testaments 
of our Bible this inquiry of the sincere soul is 
met by a complete and final answer. In the Old 
Testament it is cast in ever memorable words : 
"What doth the Lord require of thee, man, 
but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk 
humbly with thy God ? " Different in phrase, 
but identical in import, is that other noble senti- 
ment of the wise king : " Fear God and keep his 
commandments ; for this is the whole duty of 
man." He who will hearken unto the word of 
the Lord has no longer any excuse for stum- 
blino;. He who will not hearken is as certainlv 
without excuse ; for he not only sins in the light 
but against the light. 

In the New Testament the answer is still more 
complete and unequivocal. That record teaches 
that sin is death ; that righteousness is life and 
peace ; that the worth of a man consists not 
in his talents nor in his accumulations, but in 
his virtue ; and that human happiness is always 
commensurate with human goodness. Or, to 
state the same great New-Testament truth in 



68 REVELATION. 

different terms, man was made to be saved.^ It 
is self-evident that the best thing for him is to 
attain that for which he was made. The mean- 
ing of the mission of Jesus is comprised in 
these two facts : (1) that sinful men are per- 
ishing men ; (2) that they cannot be depended 
on to lift themselves out of sin, and consequent 
wretchedness, without Divine help. We submit 
the Sermon on the Mount, the Parable of the 
Prodigal Son, the Epistle to the Romans, — we 
might almost say the entire New Testament, — 
in support of these propositions. 

8. Unfortunately, it does not follow that men 
will do what is best for them when they have 
learned, on Divine authority, what that is. The 
teacher of morals and the preacher of religion 

1 For the benefit of such readers as may not have the 
opportunity to see the other Manuals of Doctrine and Duty in 
this series, we may remark here that in the Universalist view 
salvation is moral perfection. This is wliat man was made 
for; this is what Jesus Christ came to insure to him. It is an 
attainment with which times and places have nothing to do, 
except that every attainment occurs at some time and in some 
place. Every act or acquisition which contributes to our moral 
improvement enters into the process of our salvation. Jesus 
Christ is pre-eminently our Saviour because he extends to us, 
in its fullest measure and in its purest form, the help we 
require in the most critical crises of our struggle. He is the 
Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end of our victory. 



EEVELATION. 69 

encounter here their most discouraging repulse. 
When they have made it clear that men are the 
children of God, and have pointed out the range 
of motive and ambition which such a noble line- 
age implies, they naturally look to see an im- 
mediate elevation of the whole purpose of life. 
Man is a reasoning being ; he ought also to be 
a reasonable being. If he were, it would be 
almost a matter of mathematical calculation that, 
having been shown his real and lofty place in 
the scale of creation, he would be urged by an 
irresistible impulse to be worthy of it. But this 
reasonable expectation is too generally doomed to 
disappointment. In one of his quaint and pow- 
erful sermons, Thomas Whittemore describes an 
interview with the deacon of a Baptist Church. 
The deacon professed that he could be a Uni- 
versalist if any passage of Scripture were shown 
him declaring unequivocally that the mission of 
Jesus extends to men after death. Mr. Whitte- 
more quoted several grand declarations which 
he believed involved that conclusion ; " but the 
deacon shook his head." Finally Mr. Whitte- 
more came to Romans xiv. 7-11, which he recited 
slowly and with triumphant emphasis. Said Mr. 
Whittemore, *' I looked to see him spring from 



70 REVELATION. 

the floor; but he did not." The case seemed 
clear to the teacher ; the pupil's mind was yet 
enveloped in the cloud of long-growing associa- 
tions. It would take time and renewed dispen- 
sations of light to lead him out into open day. 

It is the same in every department of moral 
or religious progress. Few persons advance to 
new and higher ground at a bound. Gradually 
the mind opens, slowly old ties and associations 
are unknit, and with hesitation and alternations 
of progress and retreat most men go forward. 
It is not wonderful that so large a per cent of 
the converts of religion go back to their former 
life, or that so many of those who, in a season 
of temperance revival take the pledge, fall away 
shortly afterward. The cords of custom are 
tough, the bias of evil and of ignorance is not 
soon overcome. 

So it comes to pass that neither the knowl- 
edge what their rank is among the creations of 
Grod, nor what is best for them, induces men 
generally to forsake a low plane of life or to 
enter earnestly on broader and better ways. 
We must reckon with depravity, a narrow mind, 
pitiful weakness, vanity, and wilfulness. Many 
know the right and still the wrong pursue. At 



REVELATION. 71 

this hardest and most hopeless point in the 
task of the reformer, revelation comes to his 
aid. The Christian revelation, of which we 
here particularly speak, has, as its crowning 
excellence, the power to inspire men with good 
desire. It is able to beget within them the im^ 
pulse to righteousness, — to start them on the 
highway of purity and goodness. Note how this 
is accomplished. 

9. The law is that the power which propels 
a human soul along the path of the higher life 
must be begotten in the soul. Wherever else it 
may have originated, it is not motive-power to 
the spirit of man until it springs up within. 
Sometimes, and with some natures, a clear per- 
ception of the situation incites this inward im- 
pulse ; but with more it does not. They see 
that they belong to God, and by virtue of that 
relation are bound to render Him their loyalty 
and love. But they feel no deep desire within, 
urging them to rise and rush into their Father's 
waiting arms. To conclude and consummate all 
other help, therefore, men require to have motive- 
power generated within them. To this demand 
the Christian revelation answers by its personal 
forces. For the form of this revelation is not 



72 REVELATION. 

documentary, nor statutory, nor dogmatic : it is 
a revelation in a person, — Jesus, the Christ. If 
the person possess sufficient moral power the 
problem is solved. 

10. Without stopping to discuss here any of 
the questions raised over the nature, rank, or 
offices of Jesus, we may anticipate nearly unani- 
mous agreement with us in the statement that 
he has proved, in the trial of eighteen centuries, 
the most potent inspirer of moral life and en- 
ergy, in souls before dormant or dead, the world 
has known. In the plan of God souls are used 
to quicken souls. To name the epoch-makers 
of history is to prove this, — Abraham, Moses, 
David, Paul, Plato, Confucius, Buddha, Moham- 
med, Augustine, Savonarola, Luther. These were 
mighty souls, luminous and instinct with truth, 
so that their touch gave light and life to other 
souls. They have ruled the world from invisi- 
ble thrones, because at bottom it is a spiritual 
world, and they were spiritual sovereigns. 

But Jesus easily transcends them all. Wher- 
ever his spirit touches another spirit, something 
is communicated. No one who has ever known 
Jesus can be quite the same that he was before. 
There is access of a new power, the undying 



REVELATION. 73 

charm of a new grace. Somehow this man 
finds that chord in the human soul which, once 
thrilled, never ceases to vibrate. The witnesses 
to this fact are as often those who deny his 
supernatural claims as those who assert them. 
Robert Elsmere supposed he had found a way 
of being religious without being a believer in 
anything supernatural. He emptied himself of 
what have usually been regarded as the essential 
contents of Christianity. What did he then do ? 
He filled up the void with love and reverence 
and imitation — a sort of worship — of Jesus. 
To inspire others to practise self-denial, courage, 
and gentleness, he must himself first be inspired. 
There was no source in all the world, in all the 
company of the great and good, to which he 
could turn for personal inspiration, save to the 
Son of Man, whom he refused to recognize as 
also Son of God. The testimony alike of those 
who adore him and of those who would dis- 
crown him supports the memorable confession 
of Peter : " Lord, to whom shall we go ? Thou 
only hast the words of eternal life." 

The conclusion seems not unwarranted, that 
the Christian revelation is essential to the best 
development and truest happiness of man- 



74 EEVELATION. 

kind. We may at least claim that these 
ends are not attained without its powerful 
aid; nor can we see how they could be with- 
out that or something equivalent. We must 
not commit the fallacy of confounding desire 
with need. The value of a thing in the mar- 
kets of the world is determined by the desire 
men have for it. But in the higher depart- 
ments of knowledge and morals and, religion, 
the value of a thing cannot be left to that 
decision. Frequently, there is only scant in- 
dication of a desire for the things of most 
real value. Those who show the least appre- 
ciation of the school are uniformly those who 
would be most benefited by cultivating its 
acquaintance. The boor flouts instruction in 
manners; but he needs nothing else so impera- 
tively. The partisan politician never wearies 
in his gibes, though he often exhausts his wit, at 
the political reformer. But it is plain enough 
that he needs most what he most derides. 

So, when we have shown that the Christian 
revelation supplies what all human beings re- 
quire for their perfection and peace, it must 
not be thought a pertinent answer to say, 
" But men do not seem to desire this good 



REVELATION. 75 

overmuch." This may be true or not true; 
but if it were the fact that the desire for 
Christianity has to be created, or at least edu- 
cated, that would not disprove that it is the^ 
chief good of man. We incline to think, 
however, that the " natural aversion " of men 
to the Gospel has been much exaggerated. 
Most of the repugnance to the religion of 
Christ is recoil from the irrational and dread- 
ful dogmas that have to so large an extent 
usurped its name. But the truth on which 
we wish to fix the reader's mind here is 
that in all his higher interests man " needs a 
teacher to admonish him." We do not send 
out missionaries to persuade men to plant and 
reap, to buy and sell and get gain, to delve 
in the mine and sail the sea, to eat, drink, 
and be merry; for they are eager enough to 
secure all these forms of good. It is other- 
wise with regard to the durable riches of 
righteousness. We do send out missionaries 
to persuade men to seek first the kingdom 
of God and His righteousness, and to clothe 
themselves with those garments of grace 
which never wax old ; because, while these 
are concerns of the highest and most abiding 



76 REVELATION. 

importance, we know from long and painful 
experience that they are not pursued bj men 
generally with either alacrity or enthusiasm. 

It is the peculiar and abiding excellence of 
revealed religion, that it develops for itself 
the spirit and the instrumentalities which 
press its benefits on the attention of those 
who need them. Christianity is often de- 
scribed as " the missionary religion." This is 
its spirit. It cannot confine its good to its 
present circle of beneficiaries. It flows out to 
others ; it knocks at all doors ; it offers to 
share its light and blessing with all mankind. 
Once a soul is infected with its divine conta- 
gion, he longs and burns to communicate the 
unspeakable rapture. 

Now this spirit begets its needful and ap- 
propriate form. The Gospel does not waste 
its sweetness on the desert air; it grows an 
organism — a Church. This is "the body" it 
requires to make it a serviceable thing to 
mankind. Without becoming instituted and 
taking its place as a working force among 
the other institutions of our world, Christian- 
ity could accomplish little. But organized and 
supplied with the instruments of a varied and 



liEVELATION. 77 

practical service, it at once takes its place 
among the great forces of the world, with 
which society and government must reckon, 
and lays its mighty hand on every interest 
and enterprise of mankind. And organization 
is its law as freedom is its life. If, therefore, 
Christianity be administered with any intelli- 
gent comprehension of its genius, it is sure 
to be an aggressive religion. Such it has 
proved itself to be under every variety of 
polity. This was its character in the earliest 
period of its activity, before schism appeared ; 
this continued to be its strong trait when it 
was rent with faction and convulsed with 
controversies ; this spirit reappeared as the 
predominant impulse in the Reformation ; and 
it marks every branch of the Church, east or 
west, Catholic or Protestant, in the whole of the 
modern era. In this is at once the hope of the 
Church and of the world. Our religion will not 
rest until it has established righteousness in the 
earth, and the isles wait for its law. 

X. — Theosophy and Revelation. 

In every age since Plato, and in India be- 
fore his time, there have been persons who 



78 REVELATION. 

have professed a peculiar wisdom in Divine 
things. In some cases the knowledge has 
been supposed to be due to a secret, at first 
imparted from God, or from the gods, and 
piously preserved and handed down through 
a chosen body of men, like the Egyptian 
priests. The ancient theurgy seems to have 
been of this type. In other instances the 
knowledge of God and of the invisible realms 
was imagined to be accessible by means of a 
long series of physical exercises, sometimes 
accompanied with chantings or wailings. A 
more refined type of theosophy was that of 
the Egyptian Platonists, and of various mod- 
ern sects, both in Asia and in Europe, who hold 
that intercourse with God is possible to the 
devout and meditative "in every nation under 
the whole heaven." To this has often been 
joined the idea of communication with other 
spiritual beings. The student of the subject 
is surprised to find that there has been no 
people so rude, no age so sensual, no class so 
cultivated, as not to have representatives 
among the Pyrrhonists, or theurgists, or mys- 
tics, or theosophists, or seers. Although the 
Christian Church has been supplied with the 



REVELATION. 79 

records of a special revelation, and has pro- 
fessed to build both its organization and its 
doctrines on the Scriptures, persons, parties, 
and even sects, have arisen in it from time to 
time, who, like Miguel Molinos, like Sweden- 
borg, like Madame Guyon and the Quietists, 
have taught that there is still an open way, 
by spiritual contemplation, to direct personal 
knowledge of God and spiritual things. 

1. It is easy to scoff at this, and wave it 
one side under the stigma of fanaticism. But 
there is a truth at the heart of these phenom- 
ena. God is ; men are the children of God, 
bearing His image. To know God is the eter- 
nal quest of the human soul. Moreover, He can- 
not be far from any one of us, since in Him 
we live and move and have our being. There 
is no reason, therefore, to question, but every 
reason in sound philosophy to believe, that 
the human spirit may put itself in such 
relations with the Divine spirit as to be 
conscious of God. This is the truth in the- 
osophy, in mysticism, in quietism. The same 
truth has been apprehended by pious souls in 
every branch of the Church, and is stored up 
in the devotional literature of all the sects. 



80 REVELATION. 

It is a precious truth. The Christian teacher 
or preacher has no call to antagonize it. On 
the contrary, he should recognize it and rest 
in it as one of the great spiritual facts under- 
lying all religion. 

2. In the means used to attain this spirit- 
ual illumination lies the secret of personal 
faith in God and lurks the danger of relig- 
ious delusion. By prayer, by contemplation, by 
long and assiduous cultivation of the power 
of spiritual discernment, does the spirit's 
eye open on the " things of God." There is 
no other means of awaking to spiritual con- 
sciousness and remaining awake. But experi- 
ence proves that not every person can engage 
in this work of abstraction from the world of 
our physical abode and penetration into the 
more real world of the spirit, without loss of 
his firm footing as an earthly pilgrim. It 
is essential to our usefulness here that we 
should preserve a solid hold on the material 
world ; it is just as essential that we should 
learn how to discern spiritual things. The 
natural and the spiritual are parts of one 
whole. The eye that is closed to either sees 
only half the truth. But as an exclusive pur- 



KEVELATION. 81 

suit of earthly good distorts the moral vision 
and disfigures the moral symmetry of a man, 
so absorption in the search after God and the 
unseen tends to disturb the natural play of 
the perceptions, and imports into the field of 
sense measures and standards which cannot 
be used. It is for this reason that theoso- 
phists, in India or in America, enjoy the repu- 
tation of people who are striving 

" To wind themselves too high 
For mortal man beneath the sky." 

3. The greater sobriety and practical use- 
fulness of those who rest in the doctrine of a 
revelation made through chosen oracles at ap- 
pointed epochs hints the truth that as every 
man cannot be his own astronomer, so it is 
not expected that every man shall be his own 
seer. There may be no decree of nature or 
God that prohibits any man from becoming an 
astronomer; but it is not practicable for every 
one to perfect himself in that science. So 
there may be no ordinance of God against 
every man's inquiring into the deep things of 
the Spirit and becoming at length as sure of 
them as he ever was of the natural earth and 
sky ; but it is practically impossible to a useful 
6 



82 KEVELATION. 

citizen of this world. The daily welfare of man- 
kind is as truly subserved by a special revela- 
tion as are the higher interests of the soul. 
We need have no quarrel with any seer, real 
or alleged, ancient or modern. What he as- 
serts is confirmation of what we teach ; but 
for the purposes of our present state of being 
we can say to our fellows generally, if not to 
him, " Yet show we unto you a more excel- 
lent way." 

XI. — Interpeetation of Scripture. 

The subject of the interpretation of the 
Scriptures is too large to enter upon in detail 
in a brief survey like this. The principles 
involved in rational and reverent exegesis 
have been implied in the account already giv- 
en of the Bible and of the different theories 
of the mode of its production. To make our 
summary of revelation complete, however, it 
is necessary to add here a word directly on 
the interpretation of Scripture. 

1. The same principles which a competent 
and fair-minded scholar would apply in the 
interpretation of any ancient book, produced in 
a foreign clime and among peoples no longer 



EEVELATION. 83 

maintaining a national existence, should be 
applied to the study of the Bible. Its lan- 
guage, its history, its customs, its characters 
must be studied as these are in secular liter- 
ature. The philology and grammar, and the 
entire critical apparatus of a Biblical student 
differ in no essential respect from those em- 
ployed by the student of the Vedas or of Ho- 
mer. That is, in both instances he would 
wish to know the places and the persons and 
the circumstances as accurately as the best 
means now existing will permit, as an indis- 
pensable condition of understanding the written 
record ; and he would use the accepted prin- 
ciples of the language as modified by this 
particular author in determining the meaning 
of any passage. 

2. The meaning of the Bible is the Bible. 
The interpreter gets all the light from histo- 
ry, biography, political institutions, social and 
tribal customs, habits of thought, peculiarities 
of language, usage of the author, that it is 
possible to obtain, not to draw a desired 
meaning out of the text, but to gain its true 
meaning. The question he continually asks 
himself is, What did the writer or speaker 



84 REVELATION. 

mean here ? In this inquiry he does not con- 
cern himself with the truth or falseness of 
the thing expressed : he asks only for its pre- 
cise and full meaning. Reconciliations may 
be demanded afterwards: they are not to be 
thought of now. 

3. Having determined the meaning of Holy 
Scripture, the interpreter has concluded his 
task. On the basis of the true meaning the 
Christian teacher, preacher, or theologian may 
determine doctrines, build systems, enforce du- 
ties. These should be either directly taught by 
the language of the Scriptures, or legitimately 
deduced from the unquestioned meaning. The 
practice has been, to no small extent, to con- 
struct a theological system, draw out a 
scheme of doctrines in harmony with the 
system, and then proceed to "interpret" 
Scripture so as to make it contain the sys- 
tem and teach the doctrines. This is the 
reverse of the true method. If we have faith 
in the Bible we shall show it, not by constru- 
ing it to support our preconceived opinions, 
but by forming our opinions on the model 
of its teachings. 

4. It must not be inferred from the array 



REVELATION. 85 

of critical appliances mentioned, and the tools 
of knowledge said to be used by the exegete, 
that only the vastly and variously learned can 
understand the Bible. It is not the scholar's 
but the people's book. The greater part of it 
is readily intelligible to the uneducated. In- 
deed, if no bias is in the mind of the reader, 
and he reads to understand, as he would his- 
tory, poetry, precept elsewhere, there will be 
but small liability of misapprehension. In re- 
spect of all the more vital facts and instruc- 
tions this is particularly true. Yet, as the 
Bible was recorded originally in languages 
with which scholars only are now familiar, 
and as its whole wonderful history and its 
minutest particles have been subjected to the 
closest scrutiny by generations of Biblical spe- 
cialists, the wise student of this most marvel- 
lous of books will not commit himself to an 
opinion in regard to any obscure matter until 
he has aided his own insight by the fuller and 
more exact knowledge of the learned ; while 
in regard to great and weighty doctrines af- 
fecting the faith and life, or questions of mo- 
ment which are also matters of controversy, it 
would be natural that he should feel stronger 



86 REVELATION. 

if his own views were supported by the con- 
sensus of scholarship. 



XIT. — Authority of Scripture. 

Closely related to the question of the inter- 
pretation is the question of the authority of 
Scripture. The ^os^Reforination divines oc- 
cupied a position in regard to this subject 
which it must be confessed gave them great 
advantage over their less rigorous successors. 
They held to the complete verbal inspiration 
of the books of the Bible. As every jot and 
tittle was the word of God equally .with the 
weightiest deliverance of Jesus, the question 
of authority was very simple. Any declara- 
tion of Scripture, and every declaration, must 
command instant respect and require unques- 
tioning obedience. As matter of fact it may 
be doubted whether more persons received the 
word with reverence or heeded it with alac- 
rity. But the theory was simple, easily 
expounded, and quickly understood. The 
reasonable view, which we have presented in 
these pages, does not admit of so simple ap- 
plication. It requires us to take account of 



REVELATION. 87 

"the human element" in the Bible, of histori- 
cal and biographical errors, of discrepancies of 
fact, of mistaken opinions, as well as of poe- 
try, tradition, and the sayings of uninspired 
and wicked men, that sprinkle the record. 

1. What authority, it may be asked, can 
such a book claim ; and what authority is it 
fi.tted to command ? We do not pretend to 
be able to give a direct and unqualified an- 
swer to this inquiry. The most we can safely 
and sincerely say, is, that we have never met 
a case of actual difficulty, — a case, that is, 
where some one wished to know what degree 
of authority should be accorded a given pas- 
sage of Scripture, but could not ascertain. In 
all practical exigencies we believe the answer 
is clear and' satisfying. The instructions of 
Christ, the reasonings of Paul, the "thus 
saith Jehovah" of Isaiah, are generally plain 
enough ; and every rational and reverent soul 
feels that they are of different degrees of au- 
thority. If in respect of these and similar 
portions of the record, which are obviously of 
the highest value, there is no practical diffi- 
culty in determining the relative degree of 
imperativeness, how much more readily will 



88 REVELATION. 

the imagined obstacles disappear in the case of 
the Chronicles, Esther, and the Apocalypse ! 

2. But the inquirer may wish to know 
whether any portion of the record is of abso- 
lute authority ; and if so, what is the test for 
determining it. We should answer to the 
first part of the question : Yes, large portions 
of the Bible are of absolute autliority, and the 
Bible as a whole is of such authority ; that 
is, a man has no right to believe or teach 
religious doctrines not found in the Bible ; 
and contrariwise he has a right to believe 
and do what the Bible as a whole clearly, 
sanctions. 

To the second part of the question we 
should reply, The test must be found in these 
three things : (1) Is the teaching the un- 
doubted word of the Lord, or of Jesus Christ, 
or of an apostle, or of some other inspired 
teacher ? (2) Does it commend itself to the 
reason and the moral sense ? (3) Does it vin- 
dicate and verify itself as the truth of God 
by proving, on trial, to be for the highest 
good of men ? It may not be possible to ap- 
ply all of these : it will in most cases be prac- 
ticable to apply two of them ; and a degree of 



REVELATION. . 89 

authority which no right-minded person will 
venture to disregard must be accorded to any 
Scripture that abides one of these tests. 

3. It is to be distinctly recognized that the 
claim to authority over human opinion and 
conduct of any alleged revelation must submit 
to review and decision by the human facul- 
ties. If we accept the authority, as much as 
when we reject it, we do so by the use of the 
only instruments we possess for reaching a 
conclusion on any subject. There is, there- 
fore, not only no prohibition of the use of our 
reason on the problems of revelation, there is 
a distinct command, announced in our consti- 
tution, to use this prerogative. It is quite true 
that we may mistake ; but there is no help for 
it. Our consolation is in the certainty that 
we should more grievously mistake, and inex- 
cusably too, if we attempted to decide so 
grave a matter without reason. 

XIII. — Conclusion. 

We have endeavored to show what revela- 
tion in general includes, and to set forth, 
without using technical language, what sound 
and reverent scholarship authorizes us to hold 



90 . REVELATION. 

as the truth concerning the Holy Scriptures of 
the Old and New Testaments. We have been 
obliged to omit much more relating to our 
subject than we have found room for. Our 
judgment is that we have selected that which 
is most relevant, timely, and important. The 
greatness of the theme, its transcendent inter- 
est, and the vastness of the material, impress 
us powerfully with the smallness of our achieve- 
ment. But it has been a higli satisfaction to 
snatch a few hours from a crowded round of 
daily duties, to commend anew, and in the 
fair outlines supplied by modern knowledge, a 
Book that is the choicest literary inheritance 
of the human race, unequalled as a store- 
house of the wisdom that comes from above, 
and without a rival in the beneficent influence 
it exerts over the mixed scene of earthly sor- 
row, sin, and joy. 



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